Forever
by zosimos
Summary: Sceptre of Flamel: Prompt #38 of 50. Roy and Ed and the sunset.


Roy leaned back against the fence, the old wooden beams probably full of splinters waiting to dig under his skin. He ignored the thought, taking a deep breath and looking out at the evening sky. He had hooked his elbows back over the top-most beam, which shifted as Edward did.

Edward had hiked himself up onto the fence with the practiced ease of someone who had grown up out here, grinning, with his mismatched feet bare on the wood. Roy couldn't help but wince at the thought of trying to pull an impossibly thin sliver of wood out of Edward's incredibly ticklish foot later.

The rolling hills of Resembool spread out in front of them. They'd been sitting here for a while, and Edward was silent. That was unusual for him, given a prompt and Edward would chatter happily forever about the most esoteric aspects of a particular branch of alchemy while your eyes crossed in boredom. Roy glanced over at Edward, who was staring intently at the landscape like there would be a test on it later.

"Ed?" Roy asked quietly.

Edward blinked as if he was coming out of a trance, then glanced over at Roy quizzically. There was something mournful about his expression that unsettled Roy deeply. "Are you all right?"

The smile that Edward gave him was equally as disquieting. Edward wasn't supposed to look like that, all brash and recklessly brave - but he knew now that was the front that Edward put up in front of people - in front of everyone else. Before Alphonse, and now before him, Edward would allow himself those moments of contemplative weakness.

"Yeah," Edward lied. "Yeah, I'm fine."

It was a lie, and not a very good one. Even if it had been a good one, Roy would have known anyway. There was something about their bond now that even the best lies resonated in his bones, he knew without question when Edward was bullshitting him and when he was being honest. There were, quite definitely, perks to this whole angel business.

Edward was staring back out at the landscape again silently. He knew as well as Roy did that he couldn't lie to Roy, but if he wanted to pretend everything was fine, Roy could play that game too. They played a lot of games like this as they felt each other out, got used to the strangeness that dominated their lives. Edward wasn't content with this life, and Roy knew himself to be the same way, but there was no idea of what they could do to change that.

"I'm remembering," Edward said suddenly. "I have to remember exactly how it looks, because." He didn't have to finish that sentence, it trailed off into silence. Roy knew what it meant. Because soon they would leave Resembool, probably forever. Alphonse and Winry were getting older, while Edward was stuck forever at the age of seventeen. Soon it would be apparent that Edward was not aging, and it would get people's attention. Alchemists would presume that Edward had found the secret to immortality, the fabled Philosopher's Stone; and while Edward was one of few alchemists to have seen the Great Work it was no trick of alchemy that kept him eternally his age.

And if alchemists came after Edward, they would find Roy. Roy, whose features were plain enough that no one gave him a second glance, but the military would recognize him in a heartbeat as the missing Flame Alchemist; the man who tried to bring down the military not a few years back. There were still wanted posters in the train station of Roy; the picture taken at the military ceremony following the death of the Fuhrer King Bradley, hair short and choppy and eye patch covering half his face.

Roy covered Edward's hand with his own on the wooden fence. Family meant everything to Edward, and having to endure a separation just because of the paths their lives took was going to break his heart. He had Roy here to support him - Roy who had no family but the military, whose friends had thought him evil, and a murderer and Roy was willing to let them continue to think that - but Alphonse, restored to flesh now had his own work as a research alchemist and an interest in their childhood friend Winry. Alphonse was a bright, clever young man who, while he loved his brother dearly, did not need Edward in the same way Edward needed him.

Soon, it would be time to depart. There were many things to see in this world, and many things to see in the world beyond; the aetheric realm where the angels dwelled. The quest for knowledge always excited Edward, and the temptation of learning things beyond what lay in the realm of the mortal had him nearly giddy.

It was not yet that time, though. And Roy would stand beside Edward now, protecting him not as superior and subordinate but as family would. Edward's hand turned under Roy's until they were holding hands; and they watched together silently as the sun set over the green rolling fields of Resembool.


End file.
